Loving Him Was Red
by strikingsparks
Summary: Artemis has an unexpected visitor. Takes place during the conclusion of 'Endgame'. Title comes from a Taylor Swift song.


After telling his family, it takes nearly two weeks for Artemis to speak to anyone about Wally's death. She hides away at their apartment, wearing old sweats and eating all of the junk food she can find, and she cries so much that her nose starts peeling from being assaulted by an army of tissues. Dick, M'gann, all the members of the original team and quite a few from the new one come by and knock at the door, some more patiently and longer than others, but Artemis ignores them all. She doesn't even answer the door when Jade comes by, sounding more concerned about her baby sister than she ever has before.

Artemis wonders whether, if she ignores the doorbell long enough, it'll finally stop ringing. She wishes it would, that everyone would quit trying to make her feel better when all that would really accomplish that is the return of the speedster she's lost.

She's in the middle of a pint of chocolate fudge ice cream one night when another knock sounds against the door. Artemis rolls to her side and groans, hoping that she's out of sight of the apartment's front windows. There are a few more knocks and then… nothing. Just as she's considering whether she should check to make sure her visitor is gone, she hears a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

"C'mon, Artemis, I know you're in there! Leaving me out here is totally _not _crash!"

Artemis stumbles to the door, opening it just to confirm who is outside. "Impulse?" she asks, seeing the red-headed teenager standing with his arms crossed and tapping one foot so quickly that it's only a blur.

He races into the apartment as if he's afraid she'll shut the door in his face and sprawls across her couch like he owns it.

"What, exactly, are you doing here?" she asks, shoving him to one side of the couch so that she can settle across from him.

"Oh, I just came by to see how you're doing; I hear you've been feeling the mode since… y'know."

Artemis flexes her fingers to avoid crying or punching something.

"Isn't that a little uncalled for since you don't even know me?"

She stares at the boy sitting across from her as she waits for his reply, studying the similarities he shares with the man she loved best. He looks so much like Wally, green-eyed and spindly-limbed, that her lungs constrict, and it seems as if her body might not be able to draw another breath.

"He was related to me," the teenager says, sitting up and glancing at her before turning his gaze to his own hands. "He was related to me, and I don't even know anything about him."

Artemis sighs, looking at everything in the room but this phantom of her past, and her eyes glance over a book shelf and its contents: all of Wally's mementos from their different missions and the many scrapbooks she made when they were together.

"How about a picture tour?" she asks, standing up to grab the books.

* * *

"So this was when he ran you to Montreal?" Bart asks, flipping through a scrapbook filled with pictures of Canada.

Artemis laughs as she glances over his shoulder. "He was determined to prove that the people there don't speak French and that it's all just a conspiracy to make it more alluring to tourists."

"Man, I beat he didn't take losing well, huh?"

"He insisted that they weren't speaking French and said it must be some alien language!"

* * *

"This album's from when the team first started. M'gann actually took all the pictures here since, well, I was a little too cool to be bothered with that." Artemis glances at the images, fingers brushing across the face of a young Kid Flash.

"Were you guys, y'know, a love at first sight deal or something?" Bart asks, staring at the faces of the young heroes looking back at him.

"Only if you consider love to be trying to rip each other's eyes out on an hourly basis. Wally couldn't stand that I was replacing Red Arrow, and I guess he had good reason to mistrust me, considering what the team learned later about my family."

Artemis thought about stopping, just continuing to glance through the pictures, but Bart was so quiet, attentive even, that it felt all right to continue.

"When the team first formed, Wally had this… gigantic crush on M'gann. I think it honestly annoyed everyone because he was such a relentless flirt. When it came down to it, though, Wally was the one who told me I belonged on the team, even when Red Arrow returned." Artemis looks up at Bart and smiles as she says, "We fought sometimes, he could make me angrier than anyone else I ever met, and he could be a complete idiot… but he was _my_ idiot."

"Are you done with hero work now that he's gone?" Bart asks.

Artemis drums her fingers on the scrapbook in her lap, wondering whether she should say what may be her craziest idea ever.

"Maybe not."

* * *

It's only a few nights later when Artemis stands with Bart in the memorial garden, choking back the tears she has left at the sight of Wally's costume on his cousin's frame, so close to the hologram of the original Kid Flash that it's like she has double vision. Bart must sense that she's a bit unhinged because he voices his discomfort with taking up Wally's identity and asks if she's sure about her plan.

She inhales deeply, reminds herself that this is what she wants, and tells him that Wally would be proud. He asks about her costume, and she knows that they're both trying to find reasons to avoid this, moving on in a way that really acknowledges that Wally isn't coming back, that he won't ever be.

"Where do we start?" he asks as they leave the crowd of other heroes behind, and Artemis hesitates in answering. She needs to distance herself from what's happened but… maybe she doesn't have to completely let go just yet.

"Ever wanted to visit Canada?"


End file.
